The present disclosure relates to aircraft landing gear.
The present invention concerns aircraft landing gear. More particularly, but not exclusively, this invention concerns an aircraft landing gear comprising an axle and a wheel rotatably mounted on the axle.
The invention also concerns an aircraft and a method of braking.
Many commercial passenger aircraft use carbon brakes, comprising a number of “carbon-carbon” composite disks that can be pushed together by hydraulic actuators, in order slow relative rotation of the disks. The carbon disks are subject to wear, both during high-speed braking and especially during low-speed braking due to “surface plucking” of the brake disk surfaces.
Various e-taxi systems have been proposed, where a motor is used to drive rotation of the landing gear wheels whilst the aircraft is on the ground. One such system is proposed in WO 2015/025131 and describes the motor being connected to a toothed drive pinion that can mesh with a toothed ring gear on the wheel hub. An actuator is proposed to be used to move the toothed drive pinion and ring gear into and out of engagement with each other. When engaged, the motor can drive rotation of the wheel. There is also a proposal for the e-taxi system to include the ability to provide a reverse braking function (i.e. by using the motor as a generator to convert kinetic energy into electrical energy and slow forward movement of the wheel).
However, such an arrangement would require a large (and heavy) resistor to be connected to the generator so that the electrical energy generated from the kinetic energy can be converted into heat energy and dissipated. Alternatively, large batteries or super conductors may be used.
The present invention seeks to mitigate the above-mentioned problems. Alternatively or additionally, the present invention seeks to provide an improved aircraft landing gear.